


To Write on my Skin

by crazygirlne



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Happy Ending, Romance, Writing on Skin, minor background atomwave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 12:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15606003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazygirlne/pseuds/crazygirlne
Summary: Sara knows she has a soulmate; ink has been disappearing on her skin as long as she remembers. She's never gotten a response, but that doesn't stop her from trying.





	To Write on my Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Captain Canary Week Day 7: Soulmate AU. Canonverse mostly with a few liberties, and a happy ending (duh).

Everyone has a soulmate, in theory. Nearly every time someone seems without a soulmate, it turns out their soulmate just hasn’t been born yet. 

Sara doesn’t have this problem. The first time she remembers scribbling on her arm, she was three, and she was inconsolable when her little doodle disappeared immediately. Her father explained it to her, once she calmed enough to listen: the disappearing ink meant that she had a soulmate. The ink would appear with a tingle on her soulmate’s skin, instead, and if her soulmate drew on their skin, it would show up on Sara’s.

Since then, Sara’s been fascinated by the disappearing ink. She covers her arms in doodles, messages, notes. When life gets hard, she writes to her soulmate, letting them know. When life is good, she writes that, too. She knows nothing about her soulmate, though, save for the fact they exist.

She’s never gotten anything in return. 

Sara studies her skin every morning and night, when she brushes her teeth, or when she wakes up or crawls into bed, depending how life is treating her or whether she’s somewhere that even has a bathroom. Her skin remains unmarked by ink of any kind, and decades pass before Rip Hunter shows up and assembles a team for the Waverider.

The first night, after she climbs into bed, she writes a direct question for the first time in years: “Does time travel affect soulmate messages?”

She doesn’t expect a response, and she isn’t disappointed. Still, the next morning, she adds, in tiny letters, “Is it possible to miss someone you’ve never even spoken to? Never met? I feel like there’s less chance than usual that you’re reading this.”

Her new teammates seem alright. She clicks best with Leonard, she thinks; they tend to find each other when they’re both on the ship. He’s quick and sarcastic, and she’s not sure he knows how to actually  _ smile _ instead of smirk. It also helps that, unlike with the rest of the team, she’s not sure whether he has a soulmate. Most of the team bares enough skin often enough that she knows, after a while, who’s got a soulmate and who doesn’t. There are also those like Ray and Rip who’ve already lost soulmates but are open about it, eventually. 

She catches both of them staring at the unmarked skin on their inner wrists, sometimes, and it’s heartbreaking. If Kendra does the same, she does it in private.

But with Leonard, Sara has no clue, and while she knows she does have a soulmate, they’re enough of a question mark that she gravitates toward the other question mark in the group. The topic itself doesn’t come up until they’re freezing to death, though.

“You don’t have a pen on you, do you?” Sara manages through the cold. She can feel his attention on her. They’re pressed up against each other, as close as they can get without actually cuddling. “I want to let my soulmate know this might be goodbye.”

He does have a pen in his jacket, actually, but she can barely get it to write, doesn’t even get through a whole letter before she gives up. She ends up wrapped in Leonard’s jacket before Leonard addresses it.

“I’m sure he knows.”

“How… do you know… they’re a ‘he’?” It’s getting harder for her to speak.

He’s quiet long enough in the cold that Sara’s eyes drift shut. 

“Call it a hunch,” he says finally.

She’s not sure what to make of it, but she’s cold and tired and putting all her energy into survival.

And survive they do.

Something shifts between them, after that, so by the time Sara is left behind with Ray and Kendra, she definitely misses Leonard while she’s gone. When she’s reunited with the team, it’s hard at first, but it’s easier with him than with anyone else. She thinks it’s probably because he’s going through his own shit with Mick.

When everything starts feeling normal again, Leonard tries to get her to abandon ship with him and Mick, saying that something is about to go very wrong.

“You and your hunches,” Sara says, bemused, and Leonard opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, then scowls instead.

After Len’s escape plan fails, he and Sara are chatting in between playing cards when the soulmate thing comes up again. She grabs the pen she keeps beside her bed and scribbles out a quick message:  _ I hope you’re good at cards. _

When she looks up after putting down the pen, ink already gone, Leonard is watching her intently. She raises an eyebrow in question.

“What do you know about him?” Leonard asks, staring at the clear skin on her arm for another moment before meeting Sara’s eyes.

“Nothing,” Sara answers hesitantly. She’s not used to talking about her soulmate; most people consider it too personal to ask anyone but a close friend or potential soulmate, and Sara hasn’t had many close friends. Until now, apparently. “He’s never written me back.”

“Then why do you keep writing?”

Sara shrugs. “If they can see it, or even just feel it, at least they know they’re not alone.” She grabs the deck of cards and starts dealing, briskly changing the subject, and Leonard lets it drop.

They’re interrupted only a short time later, when Leonard’s hunch plays out and the ship is boarded. She and Len only barely hide away in time, and Sara finds his proximity while they’re hiding a bit more distracting than she thinks is warranted. 

And then after they get out, he pulls a gun on her in his desperation to leave. He doesn’t shoot her, and she doesn’t for a moment think he’s actually going to, but it hangs heavy over them after Gideon’s interruption. They do as Gideon asks, and then they’re back on the ship, waiting, and instead of keeping her distance because she’s rightfully angry at him, Sara finds herself sitting and standing as close to Leonard as always.

Closer, even, daring to touch his ring. He stills at the contact, watching her, his almost-flirty look fading into something more serious.

“What?” Sara asks.

“You haven’t written your soulmate since this particular disaster started.”

“I’ve been a bit busy,” Sara retorts.

“I’m just saying, you tried to write him with a non-functional pen when you were actively dying.” Leonard seems oddly invested in this, and she isn’t sure why. “You’ve had chances. You could be writing him now. Why aren’t you?”

It’s not actually a bad question, but when Sara realizes it’s because any of her spare focus has been on Leonard instead of on her soulmate, she gets defensive.

“Maybe I don’t have anything important to say right now, okay?” she snaps.

“Important like hoping he’s good at cards?” Leonard snaps right back, and Sara registers how close they’ve gotten, how near his bright eyes are to hers, before she registers the words.

There’s no way Leonard saw what she was writing last night. The ink had already disappeared into her skin before she was at the right angle for him to see it. He’s staring at her now like he’s asking her to make the connection that’s right in front of her face.

Her eyes move to his arm. He’s always covered, always, everywhere that she’s ever drawn. She can still feel his eyes on her as he deliberately pulls up his sleeves, pushing them just far enough that she can see faded lettering in a few places, as well as fresh ink, exactly where she’d drawn such a short time ago:

_ I hope you’re good at cards. _

“It’s you,” she breathes, unable to tear her eyes from her handwriting on his skin.

“It’s me,” he agrees, and her eyes fly back to his, and they’re so close, and she’s not sure what she’s about to do except that this moment feels extremely important and—

“The Time Drive is back online,” Gideon interrupts, and then their focus is back on saving the team, and there’s no time to talk about the fact that her whole life just shifted.

After they get most of their team back, Leonard shows up, spouting loaded phrases about how he doesn’t play by the rules, and how it’s the things he  _ didn’t _ do that keep him up at night, and it makes her wonder whether he regrets never writing her back, but she’s too frustrated to ask until he says he’s been thinking about their  _ future, _ and when she falls silent instead of responding how he expects, he speaks again.

“I imagine you have some questions.”

“You think?”

He smiles at the heat in her voice, actually  _ smiles. _ It’s small but real, and it melts some of her anger at the gun, at what feels like his deception about being her soulmate. 

Sara takes a breath. “You’re always in long sleeves. Is that to hide my writing?”

Leonard visibly considers his answer, then speaks carefully. “At first. I didn’t want anybody to realize my soulmate was so much younger than me.”

“ _ Too _ young?” Sara asks, not sure she wants to hear the answer.

“Now? No,” he says firmly. “But when I was a teenager before the first time ink disappeared on my skin?”

Sara nods, acknowledging how weird their age difference had to have felt back then. “If that was only the issue at first, why keep covering up? Why never answer?”

Leonard looks down at his sleeve. “My father was the type of person who used love, even potential love, as a weapon. He used me and Lisa against each other. He would have found a way to use you against me, or me against you, if he’d known you existed. And you weren’t exactly stingy with the personal details; I could’ve found you at any time. So I didn’t write, and I made sure he never saw so much as a hint of ink on me.”

“And once we were on the ship?” Sara asks, quiet.

He looks up at her, meeting her eyes again. “Once we met, I was sure I wasn’t good enough to bind you to me forever.” The moment stretches until he looks down and off to the side again. “I didn’t handle it well when you wouldn’t just leave the ship. I was trying to keep you safe without telling you, and…”

“And so you pulled a gun on me.”

He nods curtly. 

She lets it sink in, that as upset she is that he hid it, the biggest reason he’s never written on her skin comes down to protection, of himself and of her. And she gets that, she really does, but she’s still not sure of him in this capacity, because what if he never feels like they’re safe together,  _ good _ together, like she knows they can be? What if…

She watches as he straightens and deliberately crosses to her bedside table.

“When I was about 15, I promised myself I wouldn’t ever write on my skin until I was ready to accept everything that goes along with having a soulmate,” he says, and her breath catches when he picks up her pen. “I was very careful never to make a mistake, never to accidentally make a mark that you would see.” She hears him uncap the pen in front of him. His back blocks most of her line of sight. “If you want to pretend this never happened,” he says, voice more vulnerable than Sara thought possible, “tell me now.”

Sara is silent, and Leonard exhales before—

Sara feels a tingling on the sensitive flesh of her inner arm, and she looks down to see the neat writing work its way across her skin.

_ I’m sorry, Sara. _

It’s what she needs, the words and the writing, and she hasn’t even fully processed before she’s pulling him around to face her and pressing her lips to his.

They don’t get as long together as she’s hoping for before they have to go save themselves and all of time, but if everything goes okay, she knows they have plenty more time ahead of them. 

Ray complicates things right away; Sara isn’t sure he’s ever going to leave them alone after he sees the writing on Sara’s arm and immediately puts all the pieces together. He’s ridiculously excited about it and decides they all need to stick together, something about sentiment and luck. When Ray approaches the Oculus, he’s got Sara and Leonard by his side. Mick refuses to leave Ray, for some reason Sara will try to work out later, and Rip and Firestorm go to guard the entrance and buy them time.

It’s good the four of them are with the Oculus, really; Ray runs into some problems and needs some help to be able to wedge down the button inside the machine, but they figure it out, and all six of them make it safely back on board the Waverider, taking off just as the Oculus explodes.

Ray tries to insist on all of them celebrating together, until Mick suggests that he and Ray have a beer alone– _ oh _ –and then Sara and Leonard are able to make their escape back to her room.

Their personal celebration is mind-blowingly good, years of tension and months of friendship and passion and flirtation coming together quite spectacularly. They’re still busy afterward, saving Kendra and vanquishing Savage, but they’re  _ together. _

And when, months later, Sara finally writes  _ I love you _ on her arm when she and Leonard are separated one night for a mission, she feels the tingle of his response almost immediately.

He loves her, too.


End file.
